BEIJING: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is on a rare visit to Beijing, has expressed concern over the human rights situation in China, specially over large scale detention camps in Xinjiang province, during his meeting with Chinese premier Li Keqiang on Friday, a Japanese government official said. "Of course, with the Uighur issue in mind, (Abe told Li that) the international community, including Japan, has been paying close attention to the human rights situation in China," Japanese news agency Kyodo quoted an unnamed Japanese official as saying. Abe's remarks indicated that Japan and China have been at odds over several political issues, although they have agreed to bolster economic cooperation as bilateral relations have been markedly improving since late last year, the report said. The Japanese prime minister's remarks came in the backdrop of a UN Human Rights panel report in August stating that China had detained over a million Uighur Muslims, who have opposed growing state surveillance, in re-education camps, which are also called indoctrination camps. The UN's Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said it was alarmed by "numerous reports of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities" being detained in Xinjiang region and called for their immediate release.

China defended the camps saying that they are re-education camps aimed at de-radicalise sections of the Uighur Muslim population from extremism and separatism. US and several other countries have also expressed concern over the camps. The Chinese Muslim community has reportedly resisted coercive "re-education" efforts by the authorities, which have progressively restricted religious minorities from observing the basic articles of their faith. This includes programmes that focus on psychological indoctrination.